Poets & Writers – September 2019

SEPT OCT 2019 96

Established in 1999, the three-year

MFA program at Boise State offers

degrees in poetry and fiction. It offers

full funding in the form of teaching or

graduate assistantship positions with a

full tuition waiver, health benefits, and

a stipend of $10,500 for all three years.

Incoming class size: 5. Application

deadline: January 15, 2020. Application

fee: $65. Core faculty includes poets

Martin Corless-Smith, Janet Holmes,

and Kerri Webster and fiction writers

Emily Ruskovich, Brady Udall, and

Mitch Wieland.

tfcw.boisestate.edu/creativewriting

Students have opportunities to work

at the Idaho Review, either as graduate

assistants or through course credit or

internships, and the poetry publisher

Ahsahta Press.

Formerly a faculty member of Franklin

& Marshall College and Southern

Illinois University, novelist Brady Udall

codirects the program at Boise State

with poet Martin Corless-Smith.

special section MFA PROGRAMS

Mary Pauline Lowry

2019 MFA in Fiction

Boise State University in Idaho

To how many programs did you apply? Eight or ten. What criteria were most impor-
tant to you during the application process? Funding, geography, and faculty, in that
order. I knew I could only attend a fully funded program. And my husband would
be moving with me, so the program needed to be in a place where he would ideally
like to live and could find employment. To how many programs were you accepted?
Tw o. Why did you choose the program you attended? My friend and longtime men-
tor Denis Johnson and his wife, Cindy Lee, lived in Boise in the fall of 2015, when
Denis was a visiting professor at the MFA program. When I asked him about Boise
via e-mail, he replied: “Boise is great. I suspect it’s at the peak point—big enough to
have culture, etc., small enough to get around in. Great weather this fall. The writing
program is small and very laid-back. If they offer you dough, get out here before it
goes to hell like every other good place.” Did you receive funding? Yes, I received full
funding: free tuition, health insurance—which included free massages at the student
health clinic—about $880 a month during the school year, and a Stephen R. Kustra
Fellowship, which was a lump sum of $4,000 to pay for my move to Boise. How else
did you make ends meet while you were in the program? I did glamorous freelance
writing for O, the Oprah Magazine and unglamorous freelance—writing profiles of
real estate agents—and I also had a long-distance, quarter-time job at UC Irvine. Did
your experience of the program exceed, match, or fall short of your expectations? I
knew the program would grant me time to write. I wanted to use that time and sup-
port to draft a novel. I wrote my comic novel, The Roxy Letters, from start to finish
during my time in the MFA. It sold to Simon & Schuster during my third year in the
program. I could not have done it without the support of my professors and fellow
students. So I would say my experience greatly exceeded my expectations. I also
loved working as associate editor of the Idaho Review. I learned a lot from founding
editor Mitch Wieland about the attention to detail necessary to be a good editor—of
my own work and that of others. What was the greatest benefit of attending your
MFA program? Three months after starting The Roxy Letters, I took a novel structure
class called Form and Theory with Brady Udall. My assignment for the class was
to write a summary of the entire novel, which was then workshopped. The exercise
and the feedback I received were incredibly helpful. I appreciated that the program
offered support in drafting a long project. Did you learn more from your professors,
your peers, or others? I learned a lot from my professors and peers, but I was also
surprised how much I learned from the students I taught in undergraduate creative
writing classes. Their youthful energy and passion were infectious and were just
what I needed at times when I felt a bit battered by my failures. How did your MFA
program prepare you for post-MFA life? I loved being in an MFA program and am a bit
sad I’ve been ejected into “post-MFA life.” To quote my MFA pal Tim Griffith: “Nothing
else is as fun.” In April 2020, during my first post-MFA year, if all goes as planned, I’ll
see the novel I wrote during my MFA published and shared with readers. I hope post-
MFA life involves writing, supporting my fellow MFAers and other writers, and being
part of a larger literary community. Any advice for writers who are applying to MFA
programs? Focus on your writing sample above all else. And if you don’t get in the
first time, keep writing and writing. I just graduated, twenty years after I first applied
to an MFA program. I hope that’s more inspiring than depressing to MFA applicants.

The other program in Idaho

University of Idaho in Moscow

(full-residency). ma

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